Spirituality Column No. 511
August 30, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column No. 510
August 23, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters”


In older versions of the Bible, instead of “preparing your mind” this verse reads “girding up the loins of your mind.”  In either case, it is Peter’s sober call to wise action.

Physically, “girding” means unencumbering one’s legs to maximize one’s mobility.  This can be accomplished with a belt or sash, tightening the waist of the garment (think “girdle”), or by lifting, wrapping and tying the “skirt” around one’s “loins,” the human mid-section between the bottom of the rib cage and the pelvis.  “Girding up the loins” is what robe-wearers do when preparing for labor or battle.

Shifting the context to Peter’s call for intellectual discernment, prayer and action, “girding up the loins of your mind” instructs us that we most effectively pursue God’s will when we unencumber our minds from things that hinder truth and slow our salvation; thereby freeing ourselves for right-minded, holy action.  In other words, Peter tells us to dismiss worldly culture and cares, and to clearly, tenaciously and exclusively pursue and emphasize hope, grace and the risen Christ in all that we see, think and do.

 A few books earlier in the Bible (1 Thessalonians 5:17), the Apostle Paul tells us to do the seemingly impossible: “Pray continually.”  That’s actually not so impossible if one’s mind focuses on the hope, grace and revelation of Christ.  Instead of worrying what our neighbors (whom we are to love) think, we set our default mental filter on “revelation of Christ.”  That turns everything we think into a prayer as our days present us with joys, challenges, blessings, worldly iniquities, grievous temptations and a plethora of God-neutering machinations by an intellectually overbearing, culturally arrogant, “politically correct,” bullying, morally bereft and academically disingenuous society at large.

Every day our culture challenges the “girded” sharpness of our Christian minds.  Consider:
- Vice president Joe Biden, a confessing Roman Catholic, on Aug. 1 presided at a gay wedding in direct opposition to Catholic teaching, thumbing his nose at Church doctrine.
-  The New York Times on Aug. 13 ran an academically heinous op-ed guest “editorial” that claimed God is transgender.  That the Times ran a pro-LGBTQ editorial maliciously mischaracterizing God (God transcends gender) is not surprising; that the linguistic and scriptural argument presented is utterly specious – the Bible translation was wrong – was evidently not something Times editors considered important.

Beware the heretics and libertines.  Whether it is the best of times, the worst of times or the end of times, now is the time to be mentally prepared, in Christ, all the time.

– Commentary on Biden: Click here: Hey, Joe! | First Things
– Commentary on God’s Transgender: Click here: No, God Isn’t Transgender | First Things

Spirituality Column No. 509
August 16, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column No. 508
August 9, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column No. 507
August 2, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy.” – Micah 6:8

Seven hundred and fifty years before Christ, the minor prophet Micah announced the always consistent news of God: He both loves and delivers justice and mercy.

The larger lesson for mankind – faithful trust in a loving God’s justice and mercy – easily bridges the Bible’s Old Testament law and New Testament grace, though it’s a key point easily missed.  Amid the wrath and chaos of the Old Testament I and many others have honestly wondered, “How could God be so mean?”

The Old Testament “problem” isn’t that God is mean or unfaithful; it is fallen man’s utter inability to follow God’s laws.  Man further muddles grace by trying to rewrite God’s central truth: God is eternally faithful both to Himself and to His creation.  We sing about God being “Faithful to me.”  Fine; He is.  But first we must understand that God is faithful to Himself.  He acts justly and loves mercy.  God wants each of us to get the hint: loving what God loves opens up the front door to His heavenly kingdom.

One needs mentally to hang in there through the Old Testament’s condemnation into the saving light of the New Testament where Jesus embodies and reveals God’s justice and mercy in relationship with His righteousness and love.  It’s tempting but wrong to interpret the appearance of Jesus as some kind of divine do-over with God reconsidering Old Testament laws and pandemonium and saying, “Oh, never mind.”

If God was planning our salvation all along, we wonder, “Instead of Eden and the fall, why didn’t He just start with Jesus, save everybody, and spare us the trouble?”

I figure the answer to that one is “relationship”: the necessity of God and man building a loving bond that is built on trust, not on a meaningless “do-over” and certainly not on coercion.  Love must have meaning and can’t be forced; otherwise fellowship and freedom dissolve into empty slavery.  In the Old Testament we learn who God is and what He does, and who we are and what we do.  The New Testament reveals God’s righteous plan of restored relationship: Jesus on the cross, man’s sins forgiven.

Surface appearances aside – the justice of the cross and mercy of forgiveness – justice and mercy are not opposite ideas; they are vital and complementary components in the heavenly equation of relationship with and among imperfect human beings.

I’m guessing justice and mercy aren’t much of an issue within the perfect, eternal relationship of the Father-Son-Spirit Trinity.  Imperfect man’s narrative however is a less balanced, “I want mercy for me, and justice for everyone else.”

God simply wants us to want what He wants.

That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) neither deserves mercy nor fears justice. Instead, he trusts God’s love.